NARROW PLACES, straits — from tsar, narrow or tight; the same root gives tsarah, 'distress,' and tsar, 'foe.' Lamentations 1:3 has Judah's pursuers overtake her 'bein ha-metzarim,' between the straits: cornered where there is no room to turn. ⚠ In later Judaism the phrase became the NAME of the three weeks of mourning between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av — the period that ends on the day this book is read aloud. → first discussed at Lamentations 1:3